Nick Cashol will be Trail’s next mayor.
The incumbent councillor defeated three other candidates, taking 45 per cent of the vote. Cashol had 1,059 compared to incumbent councillor Terry Martin with 766, incumbent mayor Colleen Jones with 439, and Karl Kuepper with 39.
The council will be made up of incumbents Bev Benson, Thea Hanson, and Paul Butler plus newcomers Mark Buckley, Sarah Bullock, and Glenn Hodge.
Cashol said he was pleased with the outcome, but “a little disappointed” with the turnout: 2,315 ballots were cast out of 6,467 eligible voters, which is 36 per cent.
The retired RCMP officer said he was “fairly confident” that he had a good chance of winning based on the feedback that he received on the campaign trail. Of the new faces on council, Cashol said he knows Hodge through the Legion and looks forward to getting to know Buckley and Bullock.
He said his priority will be building trust and confidence around the council table.
“Your only strength [as mayor] really is not authority, but influence,” he said. “That influence can only be earned through trust and respect and listening and working together. So that’s my first goal.”
He said the main issue he heard about during the campaign was downtown safety and he hopes the new council will make it a priority to “establish policy and direction that really reinforces that we are listening to our business owners.”
“That establishes kind of a precedent and a foundation for possibly other businesses to say ‘Trail city council and city staff are really supportive of business in the downtown core,’ and it might encourage other businesses to come here and open up. That’s the start of building a new, vital downtown.”
Cashol was first elected to council in 2022.
